When you’re at the gas station filling up, which credit card should you be using for that purchase? We used to value Wyndham points around 1 cent each, which made the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card, which earned 8 points per dollar at gas stations, a clear winner. But recent data has bumped that value down to about .7 cents, making it less of an obvious choice. So, which card should you consider for buying gas instead?
Best credit card for gas spend
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(01:08) – Citi Custom Cash® Card 5x (7.5%), up to $500 per billing cycle
(02:22) – American Express® Business Gold Card 4x (6.2%)
(03:42) – Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card 8x (5.6%)
(04:30) – Business Advantage Customized Cash Rewards credit card with platinum honors preferred rewards (5.25%): up to $2500 per qtr
(05:13) – Sams Club Mastercard 5% (up to $6K per year)
(05:40) – Costco Anywhere Visa 5% at Costco, else 4% (up to $7K)
(06:08) – Citi Strata Premier℠ Card 3x (4.5%)
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As a no annual fee, uncapped 3% gas card with no foreign transaction fees, the Wells Fargo Autograph might also be of interest to some internationally, but you can definitely do better domestically.
BJ CityBank Master Card offers up to 15 cents off per gallon @ BJs Gas Station
Does your Wyndham card valuation consider the fact that simply holding the card entitles you to a 10% discount when redeeming points? If my math is right, that should bump the card’s earning close to 6.2%.
Mind you, I also think it’s silly that Wyndham‘s points valuation doesn’t include Vacasa. But I know it wasn’t up to you guys.
A quick summary from Europe:
Luckily Citi Strata Premier works perfectly well in all the gas stations here, 3X return, not bad 🙂
Don’t forget the PenFed card for gas.
This was a very useful episode! I had been using an old AAA card for 5% cash back. But since I value MR points more, 4% on the Biz Gold will be my go-to from now on. Thanks!
Surprised to hear you talk about spending money on other things at gas stations bc I recently looked into this (after getting Wyndham card) and it seems that most of the time purchases inside a station don’t code as gas. It seemed only a couple truck stops (Pilot, I think) sell 3rd party gc and code as gas. Am I wrong? I need to meet a big minimum spend on the card so getting more 8x would be nice.
I bought gift cards at a Circle K store and they coded as 8x for Wyndham biz.
I think you can take it as written that, if it was mentioned multiple times in a podcast, that there’s a pathway to exploiting this possibility. I was listening, not watching the video, but I could practically hear the winking.
Most credit cards that offer a bonus for gas, including the Wyndham card, explicitly bonus purchases at “gas stations.” I believe that there are a few, though, that specifically bonus only when you pay at the pump. For the latter, purchasing other things won’t work. Unfortunately, I can’t remember or think of any that code the latter way
Interesting coffee break, thanks for sharing. I’ve been pondering this thought too. At least this quarter I’m prioritizing using Chase Freedom Flex for gas (5x) over Wyndham Rewards Earner Business because currently earned points can still be burnt at 1.5x with a Sapphire Reserve, but that’s ending (no spare Custom Cash, no Biz Gold).
I’m down-valuing 8x Wyndham to 5.44% now because .68 is the lowest the points have been sold at (down from .72, down from .94). Good to see that your valuation methodology (RRV) roughly agrees with the lowest sale price of the points.
Gas is pretty reliably a quarterly 5x bonus category on Chase Freedom cards once a year. So I will normally buy gift cards at my local gas station on my Freedom card when its 5x and use those for the next few months after the end of the quarter. The rest of the year I get gas gift cards at my local supermarket using my Amex Gold for 4x.
Has anyone had an issue with Amex when buying gift cards at supermarkets? Outside of the SUB.
I heard things, Sco. I heard things.
I have only done this with third-party gift cards, NOT Visa/MC. I’ve done it to get 4x on the Gold and to hit $12k on the Surpass and never had any issues. I also just add in the gift cards to my normal shopping so there aren’t any transactions that are just gift cards (though in theory that shouldn’t matter). I haven’t ever hit it particularly hard – just a $500 gift card added to my shopping once or twice a week for a few weeks in a row. As always, YMMV.
To echo I’ve also bought sizable amounts of third-party gift cards at supermarkets with AMEX on BBP and Gold cards without issues. It was never more than 50% of the total spend on the card for the year and same strategy of mixing in with normal grocery purchases. It was not during a SUB (though some of it was during a referral offer bonus). Visa/MC purchases draw more scrutiny and buying gift cards to hit an AMEX SUB is asking for clawbacks or account shut downs.